How to confirm a new remote host key in Visual Studio Code Remote - SSH extension?

Question

The exact error is "Could not establish connection to "[server_name]": Remote host key has changed, port forwarding is disabled."

I recently "rolled back" a production environment's update by launching a new instance from a back up. This gives me a new server host key, as expected. Every other SSH connection tool I've used (WinSCP, FileZilla, Text Wrangler, Putty, Terminal, DBeaver, etc) has a notification of the change and lets you confirm the key yourself and verify it is valid (or not).

I cannot find that option in VS Code remote dev tools. It prompts to simply close or retry(same error, obviously). The "More actions" option doesn't give me anything but configuration file options, settings that I believe don't allow me to update the host key, and the documentation which to the best of my knowledge doesn't explain how to update the host key either.

I assume I'm missing something simple somewhere... any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

It was something simple. Found while trying to review the question.

"A supported OpenSSH compatible SSH client must also be installed." as listed in the system requirements of the documentation(linked in question). The key simply needs to be updated in said OpenSSH client before attempting the connection in Visual Studio again.

In this exact case it was as simple as going to [local_path]/.ssh/known_hosts and removing the old entry for the IP address and then attempting the connection again which now allows the verification of the new key.